Submission Guidelines

To be considered for our Winter 2027 issue please submit between October 10th and November 20th 2026.

General

  • Please submit only once per submission period unless otherwise invited.
  • We do not accept e-mail submissions; all work must be submitted through Submittable.
  • Please send all work in one file.
  • We aim to respond to your work within two months; our average response time is closer to one month.
  • Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
  • We do not accept previously published works.
  • We do not accept any AI-assisted or AI-generated work.


Poetry

  • Limit your submission to 5 poems totaling no more than 10 pages.


Flash Prose or Micro Series — 750 to 1200 words

  • Submit one piece of flash prose, 750–1,200 words, or a connected series of exactly three micros, 250–400 words each.
  • We welcome literary fiction, speculative fiction, and nonfiction in this category.

Literary Fiction — 1200 to 5500 words

  • Submit one literary fiction piece of 1,200–5,500 words.

Speculative Fiction — 1200 to 5500 words

  • Submit one speculative fiction piece of 1,200–5,500 words.

What happened to the nonfiction genre?

  • We are not looking for longer nonfiction. If your nonfiction is 750–1,200 words, submit it to the Flash Prose genre.

Payment

  • We pay $15 per accepted poem, flash piece, or micro series.
  • We pay $25 per accepted longform story.
  • We pay through PayPal.

Tips

  • Tip jar offerings go to support payment and promotion of writers. All editors at Variant Lit are volunteers.
    We appreciate your support!

 

    Submit

    © Variant Literature 2026